The 2020 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup has been scheduled to take place in Australia. From October 18 to November 15 of this year. That was until the coronavirus swept across the world. As of May there is still some debate on whether or not the World Cup should be canceled. It appears at the ICC is leaning towards holding the championship as planned. There are many concerns and issues predominantly travel without spreading the virus.
With the world still in the midst of coronavirus pandemic and no vaccine readily available. The notion to maintain the schedule for the World Cup seems a bit’s optimistic. That being said there are options that would allow the teams to participate and also theoretically the fans to fill the stadium. The original option suggested was to postpone the World Cup by a few months or as far out as two years. Since these seem to be off the table other options do present themselves.
One option could be to condense the cup to as shorter a time as possible and have several teams playing games simultaneously in different stadiums. Also going with this suggestion, the teams would have been flown into Australia where the World Cup is to be held 2 to 3 weeks before. During that time, they would be kept in quarantine until the days their matches were scheduled. Naturally, there would also have to be some significant rest time between games for the teams in question. This could shorten the Cup from four weeks to as few as one and a half.
While it might be possible to hold the as for spectators there that could be another story. It depends primarily on if certain restrictions have been put in place. The stadium could be filled if every spectator is required to wear a face mask. This optimistic viewpoint assumes that Australia will have also allowed commercial flights from other countries to resume landing. Currently they are not. If that’s not the case then the only other option would be to televise the events even more so than usual to reach as many fans possible.
Even if the T20 World Cup is held as the ICC hopes that still presents an issue. For how certain countries plan to construct their teams or allow their own leagues to play their seasons. While not a favorable solution the above suggestion could be adapted to work on a nationwide scale for any sports league. Since quarantine would have to be maintained as many games as possible would have to be arranged to occur at the same time. The reason for this is that it is impossible with this arrangement to maintain a weekly game lineup. Especially for sport leagues like United States NFL that hold games several times a week during the American football season.
With the World Cup still four months away. It is perhaps possible that the worldwide situation will return to something approximating normal by that time. If not then there are still ways to allow the Cup to progress as scheduled. Perhaps they could even allow the games to go on as scheduled if they maintain strict quarantine procedures. If not, there are other ways to arrange league and tournament games. So the players can play, the fans are entertained, and the sports world can regain a margin of its normal life.